


The Aeronaut's Guide to Love, Villainy, and Petticoats

by lilyeverlasting



Category: Treasure Planet (2002), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Action, Adventure & Romance, Aged-Up Character(s), Alien/Human Relationships, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Animal Traits, Blood and Injury, Crossover, F/F, Female Bakugou Katsuki, Female Midoriya Izuku, Good Parent Midoriya Hisashi, Happy Ending, Inspired by Treasure Planet (2002), Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, Peril, Plotty, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Victorian, no quirks, rated for violence and language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28502997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyeverlasting/pseuds/lilyeverlasting
Summary: When a priceless artifact and a deadly secret takes historian Izuku Midoriya on the adventure of a lifetime, the last thing she expected, amidst the danger, grandiose ballrooms, solar ships, and the cold expanse of space, was to fall in love.Or, that one swash-buckling streampunk/Treasure Planet romance AU where all your faves are women, Izuku's on the run, Katsuki's the alien captain of a solar ship, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.****“Have you been Earth-bound most of your life, Miss Midoriya?”Izuku nervously picked at a loose thread on her bag. “Yes.”Shouto’s reflection smiled grimly in the window. “Then you’re in a for a treat.”
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Todoroki Shouto
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37
Collections: BakuDeku New Years Bash Exchange 2021





	1. Concerning the Foldover Bag

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueaphelion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueaphelion/gifts).



> Lightly inspired by your prompt "astronaut Izuku and alien Katsuki" before it ran away from me and evolved before I could catch it. Happy reading, Laken!
> 
> Other notes: While Treasure Planet was the main source of inspiration for this fic and the fic borrows planet/wolrdbuilding names, aesthetic, and some of the alien species, the world in this story operates a bit differently than the movie.

Izuku knew she’d made a mistake when the steam carriage ground to a halt.

Three things happened at once. 

A stray cat darted across the street. The driver, an extraterrestrial with a face like a squid, swore in a series of clicks and grunts Izuku didn’t understand. She reached for the bar above the window as her center of gravity tipped, the steam carriage careening wildly to the left-and in that moment, the bag in Izuku’s lap slipped to the floor. Something whirred, and Izuku yelped, her cheek smashing against the carriage window.

“Apologies,” the driver rasped, and looked back, but by then it was already too late.

Izuku peeled her cheek from the window, the holographic painting of the sunny, English countryside flickering across it going still as a hairline crack splintered its field of watercolor posies. She flinched.

“I-oh, dear.” A hot blush rose to her cheeks as she cranked the small lever on the side of the carriage door. The window sparked, speeding through a few different stored landscapes-an alien forest, a field of roses. Tokyo. Chicago. Izuku winced, tapping the glass with a finger, and jerked back when it blackened. The gloom inside the carriage pressed closer. The driver squealed, his hands flying up to his head.

"I'm so sorry!" Izuku cried, but then the painting fell away from the window, and so did the gloom in the carriage.

Izuku’s breath caught.

The descriptions and grainy pictures of Crescentia that she had greedily stored away in journals and daydreams like gold fell short. No radio show, newspaper, or book could ever do the space port justice. She pressed a gloved hand to the window.

The copper solar sails of the ships suspended in the space port’s docks winked, like glass caught in the glare of a sunset. The crowds, human and extraterrestrial alike, bustled around the docks, flitting from kiosks and newspaper stands to ticket booths. They hurried across cobbled streets to uneven rows of shops and inns, the mining planet Montressor no bigger than a gold coin on the far edge of the horizon. Izuku laughed, her eyes burning. 

“My father used to read me reports on Crescentia like bedtime stories. But I never thought I’d actually get to see it-”

Suddenly, the window went dark, taking Crescentia and its glittering solar ships with it.

A strangled noise left the back of Izuku’s throat. “Excuse me, I think the window is malfunctioning again-” She turned her head, and her words shriveled on her tongue.

The driver was staring at her, his eyes gleaming in the dark. Something went _tick, tick, tick, whirrr_. Slowly, Izuku looked down at the bag by her laced-up boots, her heart sinking to her stomach.

The driver had noticed the bag, too. 

This was the moment Izuku realized she’d made a mistake. 

She should have taken the leather portmanteau; not the little foldover bag. But it had been her mother’s, and Izuku had found a black-and-white picture of Inko inside it, young and beautiful in a kimono, and she hadn't been able to help herself. _You_ try turning your nose up at something old that had once belonged to someone you loved. It wasn’t easy.

Izuku stared down at it.

The bag was open, just slightly; the top flap had flipped over enough to catch the glint of metal inside. Her blood ran cold. She closed it with the toe of her boot, quickly gathering it in her arms. The bag ticked. The driver said something grating under his breath. Izuku was a historian, not a linguist, but the driver didn’t have to speak Common for her to realize the steam carriage ride had taken a dreadful turn. There was nothing _gentlemanly_ about the way his small, yellow eyes flicked from her face to the bag in her lap. Izuku's stomach twisted. She cleared her throat, pressing back into her seat. 

“I believe that was-what was it? Ten credits to the shipyard from the station? A-and a little something more-for your window.” 

The driver clacked his beak, the pink tentacles draped over his shoulder twitching.

“Is that wot I said-ten?” he wondered, tapping the sharp point of his beak with a finger. Izuku sucked in a breath, her corset squeezing her chest like a fist. He turned a little key by the brake. The lock on the door _clicked_. 

“Ya see, miss, I'm startin' to think we might've misunderstood each other.”

Izuku glanced at the darkened windows, tightening her grip on the bag. She straightened her shoulders with a glare.

“I think we understood each other perfectly.” 

The driver hummed. "I'll make this easy for ya, human. You give me whatever shiny ya got stashed in that bag, and I'll pay you in crystal. Pure _Beruvian_ crystal." He opened his beak, a glitter catching Izuku's eye. He laughed when her nose wrinkled, flicking a claw against the crystal fang in his mouth. 

"Can even hear the li'l ping." He loomed over his seat like a phantom, pressing closer. Izuku stiffened, flattening herself against the wrinkled leather seat.  
  
“Give me the bag. And I’ll unlock the door. Do we’s have a deal?”

“Let me out,” Izuku gasped, angling away from the curve of his beak. Warm, fetid breath fanned across her cheek. The driver snapped his beak, laughing when she flinched.

“Don’t be stupid, girl.”

Izuku bit her lip against the hot swirl of anger bubbling in her gut. She glanced at the key. “Please.”

The driver chuckled, leaning away from her, his hand trailing down his thigh. Izuku’s heart thumped hard against her ribs.

“This ain’t Earth. Or some cutesy li’l adventure where you get saved before something bad happens.” He pulled a dagger from its hidden sheath in his boot. It glinted in the gloom. 

“I’ll gut you like a fish,” he hissed, testing the point of his dagger against the pad of his thumb. A bead of violet welled up underneath it. The blood drained from Izuku’s cheeks.

Why couldn’t reality have been like her daydreams, just this once?  
  
“Make a fortune off your bag and your innards on the Black Market, and no one will even hear you _scream_ -” 

He didn’t finish.

Izuku set her bag aside, and in the time it took for the driver’s eyes to flick from her to the bag, she had wrapped her fingers around his wrist. She twisted-hard. He yelped, the dagger slipping to the floor, his face an ugly shade of purple. 

“I wouldn’t try to scream,” Izuku said, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. His eyes blew wide. Maybe he’d realized he wasn’t cut out for robbery.

“After all, this isn’t some cutesy adventure.” She reared back in her seat, the two-inch heel of her boot driving into his eye.

He screamed. “ME EYE! ME FUCKIN’ EYE! YOU BITCH!” A burst of rage lanced white-hot through Izuku’s chest. 

“You pulled a _dagger_ on me!” 

He snarled, swiping blindly at her throat, only to crumple against the dashboard when she whacked him over the head with her bag. It would have been much harder to have achieved the same momentum with the portmanteau. The driver wheezed, too dazed to do more than gawk when she dove toward the dashboard to turn the key, kicking the door open and stumbling out into the street.

“THIEF!” the driver shrieked out the window. “THIEF!”

Izuku lunged for the street curb. 

“OUT OF THE ROAD!” 

A solar car swung around her as she tripped over her skirts, a blaring honk spearing a shot of adrenaline through her veins like an arrow. The driver swore at her in an alien tongue, shoving a hand out his window to gesture rudely as she tipped forward into the crowd. 

It swallowed her whole in a burst of color and noise. 

“Holograms! Portraits! You have a lovely face, miss-may I interest you in a holographic portrait, a token to remember Crescentia by?”

“O-oh, no-”

“Tickets to the RLS Victory,” rasped another. He grinned crookedly, popping the collar of his duster. “Low price. Won’t find anywhere else. Looks like you got somewhere to be.” Izuku shook her head, stiffening when she walked into a merchant.

“Per’aps you got som’n for trade, missss?” He studied her through curious eye stalks. His eyes moved like a chameleon’s, snagging on her dress, the hair falling from its pins around her flushed face-on the bag she was clutching to her chest, like the driver in the steam carriage. She hunched around it, her heartbeat skyrocketing when a police car rounded the street corner, the steam carriage she’d taken close behind. She walked faster. 

“Look where you’re goin’, fleshbag!” an extraterrestrial woman snapped, and Izuku bit her tongue when her shin smacked into the corner of a cart. The woman glared, the barrels of eels on her cart sloshing murky water onto the cobbled road-and onto Izuku’s skirt. She jerked away, the corners of her eyes stinging. 

“I’m so sorry!”

“Told her to look where she’s goin’ and what does she do, Liddie!?” The woman complained, mouth twisting as Izuku lifted the hem of her skirt, wet and stinking of fish. The growth on the woman’s shoulder blinked a large blue eye, scuttling up her neck and onto the top of her head.

“Falls right into your eels, Lottie.”

“Falls right into me eels like a spooked jabberflax!” Lottie’s eyes pinned on the bag in Izuku’s arms. “You’d think she robbed someone.” A chill sparked up Izuku’s spine. She shook her head, stiffening when a police siren blared down the street. She turned quickly on her heel.

“Oi! Where do you think you’re goin’! Where’s she goin’, Liddie? Come back ‘ere and buy an eel!”

“N-no, thank you!” Izuku cried, the crowd pushing her further down the street. A cyborg’s iron shoulder shoved past her, and she spun with a gasp, her ankle rolling. Crescentia congealed into a terrifying blur, the ship port’s copper sails a glitter in the corner of her eye. The bag in Izuku’s arms thumped. _Tick, tick, whirrrr._ Somewhere, a band began to play, an upbeat Imperial march. The sirens bleated. Louder and closer. Izuku swiped at her eyes with the back of her glove, sweat gathering under her stiff, high collar. She widened her stride, a fierce ache blooming across her shoulder.

“Excuse me-excuse me-” The crowd swelled around her like a sea, the current carrying her further and further away from the docks, the merchants’ voices gutted by shouts and cheers. It was like being shoved through the neck of a bottle- with every step it became harder and harder to move any way but through-until the crowd stopped, a wall of sunburned necks and work-weary shoulders, some of them with children sitting across them, waving little flags and pointing.

“Isn’t it lovely?” the human woman beside her cried, and Izuku yelped when something whined and popped. She held her bag over her head, gaping at the tiny, somersaulting fireworks fizzing over the crowd. The woman didn’t seem to notice, standing on tiptoe to wave a handkerchief over her head. She was dressed in satin and lace-luxury in an hourglass shape and bustled skirt-and judging by the purple stone at her throat, likely from the Terran mining settlements on Montressor. Very _French_ , if Izuku remembered correctly. She gripped her bag tight, her temples pulsing with the rush of her heartbeat. 

“What’s going on?”

The woman tittered, her face pink beneath her wide brimmed hat. “Don’t you know?” she shouted, as a marching band cut through the crowd, the last notes of the Terran Imperial March drowning under a shanty.

“I think I’ve lost my way. I’m looking for the space port docks, to buy passage on a solar galleon-”

The woman barked out a laugh. “A solar galleon? When there’s the RLS Victory?!”

Izuku blinked. “The what?” The woman gawked at her, and Izuku’s ears burned. 

“It’s only the largest passenger liner in history to sail through the Stygian current! Setting sail _to-day_ , as we **speak**. That’s two star systems it’ll travel by! Everyone who’s anyone wants to be on it. The Arcturian prince is on it. Can you imagine?” 

She sighed dreamily, fanning her face with a dainty fan. The apples of her cheeks were red. “Sailing through the cosmos on the same ship as a prince! Oh, look at me, rambling on and not even introducing myself. I’m Yuuga. And you are?” Izuku blinked.

“A prince?” she repeated, her eyes as large as teacups. The bag in her arms shuddered. Yuuga giggled.

_“Enchanté!”_

Izuku smiled. Most definitely French.

A cheer surged through the crowd. Yuuga’s fan moved faster. “Oh, it’s extravagant. Did I say it sails through two star systems? Bless my stars, have you really not heard of it?!”

Izuku didn’t answer, watching as the band slowly gave way to a procession of steam carriages and solar cars. Gloved hands slipped from the windows like petals, waving as they passed. Yuuga’s fan fluttered.

“Just look at them,” Yuuga sighed. “Oh, what I’d give...” 

The procession slowed. The steam carriages rolled to a stop, a curtain lifting away from one of the windows. But the passenger inside did not smile or wave. A woman stared out into the crowd, as rigid as a statue. Izuku’s heart squeezed in her chest, frozen in place when a cold, gray eye fixed upon her. She sucked in a breath, stepping back into the crowd, goosebumps marching up her arms when the woman’s gaze followed.  
  
She looked like a wealthy merchant’s daughter in a navy blue brocade jacket and feathered fascinator, slanted stylishly on her head. Her cold glare pierced through the birdcage veil tumbling from it, but it wasn’t her hat that Izuku noticed first. An angry red burn scar mottled the left side of her face, her mouth thin and grim. The back of Izuku’s neck prickled when her eyes narrowed, a tug of familiarity fraying Izuku’s thoughts. The woman was familiar. But before she could think about it any longer, the steam carriage honked, jerking back to life, and the woman looked away.

“Did you see the way she stared? I mean you’re no merchant’s daughter in that-have you been _sleeping_ in it?” Yuuga’s eyes zipped up and down Izuku’s wool traveling skirt and jacket, ignoring Izuku’s flushed face before ducking behind her fan. “But _really!_ And anyway, that scar!” 

Izuku didn’t answer, quiet as the steam carriage disappeared around the corner. She shivered. 

“You said the RLS Victory sails through two star systems,” she said, finally finding her tongue. “Which ones?” 

Yuuga hummed, her fan moving in a blur. “Oh, the Lagoon Nebula, and the Magellanic Cloud-”

A thrill shot up Izuku’s spine. She turned on her heel. “Where can I buy a ticket?!”

“-I’ve heard the captain is some sort of war hero who served in the Procyon War-wait, what?” Yuuga stopped talking, her violet eyes growing rounder.

“A ticket?” she said, as if Izuku had just asked her to install a cybernetic prosthetic to a bloody stump on the side of the road. “You want to buy a ticket to the RLS _VICTORY_?”

“Yes.”

Yuuga’s fan froze, a look of pity flashing across her face that Izuku did her best to ignore. 

“Oh, _chérie._ ” Yuuga smiled, saccharine sweet. “You might as well hijack one of those steam carriages. But if you double back, you’ll catch sight of the South Point docks again soon enough. A solar galleon is no RLS Victory, but c’est la vie. Oh! It’s the prince’s entourage! Do you see that!? Out of my way!” She elbowed her way through the crowd, and suddenly, Izuku was alone. 

She tucked a green flyaway curl behind her ear, adjusting her grip on the foldover bag when the crowd churned again, clapping along with a trio of fiddlers who had jumped out into the road. Izuku watched, the noise of the crowd dulling to a low buzz in her ear. 

There were few things worse than having your first impression of a place you’d only ever dreamed of being marred by attempted murder and robbery, and one of those things was realizing you were painfully, utterly, _alone_. 

Izuku smoothed her hand over the small, hard outline of the journal resting inside one of its front pockets, the foldover bag suddenly heavy as the last few days crashed over her in a wave of exhaustion and aches. The crowd clapped and danced around her, until she felt like a boulder stuck in the rush of a current. Her knees shook.

 _Courage_ , her father had written on page 73, _deserts no one in true need of it-only those too afraid to wield it. In this time of heroes and villains,what we need, now more than ever, is just that. Courage._

“Courage,” she muttered, steeling herself with a breath. She glanced down at the bag. “Right. Pull yourself together-”

“It’s starting to hover!” someone shouted, and Izuku caught a glint of copper in the corner of her eye. Her throat tightened, a cool breeze buffeting her face.

The RLS Victory was rising with Montressor’s sun.

It climbed over Crescentia’s steepled roofs slowly, lines of steel rope keeping the ship tethered to the ground. Somehow, it was larger than Izuku had imagined. She tipped her head back, jolting when a low bellow sounded. The crowd waved and shouted, and Izuku laughed when the street dimmed, overcast by _Victory’s_ shadow. Her eyes raced over the hull, the molten blue heat of the Etherium gas thrusters propelling _Victory_ into the air, and the spearlike point of the jib-boom that extended from the ship’s bow like a narwhal’s tooth. The wind quickened, pulling at her hair, and Izuku’s smile widened, tears in her eyes. A bubble of excitement burst in her chest. She laughed again, lighter than the Etherium gas holding Victory aloft.

“Extraordinary!” she shouted, turning excitedly to the first person beside her. “Do you see that? It’s an homage to the pre-colonial Arcturian armada!” The stranger leaned away from her, disgruntled when she pointed up above them. “I study Intergalatic History, and-”

She stopped, the giddy lightness in her chest turning to stone.

Down the street, one eye swollen and black, was the steam carriage driver. He leaned over to whisper to the extraterrestrial behind him when she caught his eye. A cold sweat broke over Izuku’s skin when his partner's eyes flicked up to her. He cocked his head, slowly peeling back his vest to reveal the pistol strapped underneath. She stepped back, feeling bloodless.

“What was that you were sayin’ just now, about Arcturian history?” asked the man beside her. “Miss? You alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Izuku swallowed, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I-” the breath in her lungs ached when she looked back to the street.

The driver and his partner had vanished. She scanned the crowd, dizzy from the race of her own heartbeat. 

“I-I have to go.” She pushed past bystanders and workers, ignoring the few swears tossed her way. The RLS Victory loomed higher, the bag in Izuku’s arms ticking again. 

A smudge of pink in her peripheral had Izuku quickening her step, and she bit the inside of her cheek when she looked back and caught the driver’s eye again, sifting through the crowd after her.

She pushed harder, tripping over her own boots. 

“Watch it!”

“Sorry-s-sorry!” Her teeth chattered, her gaze skittering across the street. Even years after her last lesson, Izuku could still hear her old mentor’s voice in her ear as her panic spiked.

 _Look around you,_ Madam Toshinori would have said. _What can you see? What can you_ use? 

Izuku spun, scanning over faces, feathered hats, and shops hunched at the end of the street-and the gleaming steam carriages cutting between them. A constable following the line blew a whistle, and Izuku glanced over her shoulder, swearing under her breath when three new faces looked back, drifting slowly through the throng. She glared, running her hand over her father’s journal again, and took a breath before bolting toward a street corner.

Someone shouted. Izuku didn't look back. She skidded around a lamppost, shoving her way into the street. A carriage honked. An officer turned, eyes narrowing when she began to walk beside the line.

“Miss? Excuse me!”

She quickened her stride, keeping close to the carriages inching down the road. The driver stepped back into the crowd. She hunched over her bag like a shell, eyes darting down the street, and gasped when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. She whirled.

“Excuse me, but if you’re not a passenger in one of these cars, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the road-” the officer let go, turning when a firecracker exploded too close to the crowd. He glared.

“Stay here.” He blew a whistle, running after a group of laughing boys. The driver peered past the crowd, circling like a vulture. Izuku turned, her mind racing. Soon the officer would be back, and either she’d be tossed back into the crowd, or questioned.

Neither of which she was willing to risk. She turned, heart leaping when a carriage door opened, the driver stepping out to run up the line. The door stayed open. Izuku looked wildly behind her, her feet moving before her thoughts could catch up.

To her credit, the woman in the steam carriage did not scream when Izuku jumped inside.

“Is this an abduction? Or a robbery?” she asked in a low, dreary voice, and Izuku realized with a sick jolt that the woman sitting across from her was the mysterious face from earlier. She sat prim and poised, her mouth still set in a hard, grim line. This close, Izuku could see the burned side of her face more clearly. Her other eye burned a bright blue, the color of the hair piled up on her head oddly split down the middle-white on one side, and red on the other.

“Because if this is an abduction or a robbery,” she continued coldly, “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong carriage. My father will not pay you.” She looked down her nose at Izuku, clasping her hands in her lap. “You’d be dead long before that.”

Izuku’s eyes blew wide. “Please,” she whispered, glancing out the window. She pressed herself against the seat when she saw the driver, walking along the curb, searching. “I’m very sorry, but this is an emergency.” 

The woman stared at her, blinking slowly like a cat, before her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “What are you, then? My father's mistress? A good time one of my brothers left behind?”

The blood rushed to Izuku's cheeks with a hot burst of anger. "No!" She tucked her curls behind her ears with a shaking hand, smoothing over her skirt. “And even if I was, how _dare_ you!” The woman regarded Izuku silently, her stare icy and calculating.

“Then what do you want? Money? My reservation? My father’s time? Are you another journalist? It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to corner me. My mother is perfectly well, thank you,” she hissed between her teeth, the corner of her mouth curling in a snarl.

“I’m sure she is,” Izuku said softly, stunned. She studied the woman’s face, her heart still beating hard, and suddenly, she knew where she’d seen her face. 

“You’re...you’re Shouto Todoroki. You were on the front page of _The Planet_ last month. I read that article! Your father owns the company that provides the mining machinery on Montressor-he’s the richest man in Japan, one of the richest people on Earth. He’s a billionaire-!” 

The woman-Miss Shouto Todoroki-paled, white with anger. “Get out.”

Izuku jerked toward the carriage door, clasping the handle with an iron grip. “No, please! My name is Izuku Midoriya. I’m from Musutafu, Japan. I study Intergalactic History.” Shouto said nothing, only waited as she sucked in a breath. “There’s a man outside, and I don’t know where else to go.”

Miss Todoroki tilted her head. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because we were born in the same Terran countr,y and you do something tame like study history? Get out-” 

“Wait, Miss Todoroki, please!” Izuku shoved her hand into her bag. Shouto stiffened.

“What is that?” 

Izuku brushed a thumb reverently over the cold metal of the orb resting in the palm of her hand. It whirred when she touched it, the alien shapes cut into the orb glowing dully. Her eyes snapped up. “The reason I haven’t slept in days, and why I’m hiding in your steam carriage right now. _Please._ Just until the end of the line.”

Shouto glanced out the window. “You should call the constabulary.”

A hysterical giggle bubbled out of Izuku’s mouth, her thoughts racing. She risked another glance out the window. “I can’t _trust_ the constabulary! Why do you think I’m still _alive-?!_ ” she stopped, vision swimming. Miss Todoroki stared at her, silent.

“I’m sorry.”

Shouto looked at her strangely. “Then why trust me?”

Izuku leaned away from her, carefully placing the orb back in the foldover bag. She felt heavy again, made of lead, and she wondered if she had made a second terrible mistake. “I never said I did.”

The door opened suddenly. “So sorry, Miss, but the issue we were having’s been taken care of-” he stopped, the smile dropping from his face. Izuku froze, heart skipping in her chest.

“You’ll have to forgive me, Keigo,” Shouto said. She didn’t look at him. “But I purposefully failed to mention I would be expecting company. She was running a tad late.” Izuku swiveled to face her, her eyes impossibly wide.

“Was she?” Keigo asked calmly, his smile crooked and handsome. Izuku’s fingers dug into her skirt the longer he stared. 

“Miss Midoriya studies _history_.”

"Intergalactic," Izuku cut in, and swallowed dryly when Keigo's gold eyes turned to her. Shouto looked out the window again.

"You know how Fuyumi always wishes I’d take a companion."

Keigo cocked his head, his smile not slipping once. “Seems rather sudden.”

Izuku stared hard at her bag, and Shouto scoffed. “Only to you, or did you think there was no particular reason to my two room suite?”

Keigo’s smile finally slipped, his eyes narrowing. “Understood, Miss. Would your, ah, _companion_ , be needing anything?”

Izuku opened her mouth, her face hot, but Shouto answered quickly for her. “Miss Midoriya is perfectly fine.” Keigo hesitated, then nodded, stepping back into the steam carriage.

“And Keigo?”

“Miss?”

“Close the partition.”

Izuku blushed when he studied them for a long moment, an eyebrow raised, before finally shutting the tinted divider. “A two room suite?” she asked faintly.

Shouto shrugged, glaring out the window. “A matter of limited rooms and pure coincidence.” Izuku’s heart beat faster, her arms wrapping around her bag.

“You’d board the RLS Victory with a stranger?”

Shouto looked at her strangely again, like Izuku was a puzzle. Her eyes drifted to the bag. “I'll take my chances, even if you do turn out to be a thief. If I'm entertaining company, I can't entertain the captain, and if I can't entertain the captain...well, that'll piss my father off, won't it?” Her mouth quirked, and Izuku studied her quietly, a sharp stab of nerves lancing through her stomach. 

“The captain?”

Shouto didn't look away from the window. “I’m an esteemed guest.” She said _esteemed guest_ like she would say _pig shit_. “Have you been Earth-bound most of your life, Miss Midoriya?”

Izuku nervously picked at a loose thread on her bag when the carriage began to roll forward. “Yes.”

Shouto’s reflection smiled grimly in the window. “Then you’re in for a treat.”


	2. Miss Todoroki's Luxury Suite

The steam carriage inched its way down the street like the violin record playing in the cab: with a jerk and a _squeal_.

The engine sputtered, and the carriage lurched, while the smallest phonograph Izuku had ever seen played a tinny violin record that skipped with a screech for every pothole the steam carriage ambled over. Izuku’s eye twitched.

It seemed there were worse things than ending up alone on a spaceport planets away from home without a single soul left to trust.

And that was moving so slowly Izuku could feel the sweat beading on her skin with each metallic groan of the steam carriage’s gears.

If you were a historian on the run from a dangerous man (not including thieving steam carriage drivers), with a priceless (unfortunately stolen but Izuku much preferred the word rescued) artifact in your possession, this was quite possibly worse than death.

The cab grew darker, the sconce lamps mounted above the windows winking to life as the _Victory_ loomed closer. The steam carriage rolled to another stop. Izuku nervously plucked at the foldover bag. And all the while, Shouto Todoroki stared out her window, unmoved and utterly, profoundly, silent. Izuku watched her out of the corner of her eye. She looked like her picture in the paper, cold and aloof under the headline: SCANDAL! TODOROKI DYNASTY TO LAST? 

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, I can assure you it’s none of your business.” 

Her mismatched gaze caught Izuku’s in the window, her reflection as cold and detached as a ghost. Izuku jolted.

“It’s just-it must be difficult-” she paused, wincing when Miss Todoroki’s long fingers curled into fists in her lap. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Thank you…for what you’ve done for me, Miss Todoroki.”

Miss Todoroki’s gaze slid away. “Don’t mistake opportunity for generosity, Miss Midoriya.”

The steam carriage shuddered, and Izuku jerked forward, looking away. She swore under her breath. Now wasn’t the time to wonder about the skeletons in Miss Todoroki’s family closet…or worry about Miss Todoroki herself. Not when she could crush Izuku’s chances of boarding a solar ship beneath her heel with the snap of a silky, gloved finger. Izuku swallowed dryly. She leaned against the window, watching the crowd pass. Would the steam carriage driver and his thugs follow the procession? Had the driver seen the orb in her bag for what it was? She shook her head, listening for the orb in her bag to steady her heartbeat as the RLS Victory rose higher and higher above them. Tick, tick, whirrr. 

The ship bobbed overhead like a floating island, its sheer size enough to slow the spin of Izuku’s thoughts.

Nothing, Hisashi had told her once when she was small, ridiculous in a pair of magnifying brass spectacles he hadn’t bothered to remove while Inko lingered with a smile in the doorway, compared to the very first time I saw a solar ship on Crescentia. Except, of course, for the very first time I saw your mother.

Izuku smiled, her fingers inching toward the holo-locket nestled under her collar. “I’m here,” she whispered, her eyes drifting shut. “I’m here.”

“You are,” a voice agreed. Izuku startled, stiffening when the carriage jerked to a final stop. Miss Todoroki watched her from beneath the mesh of her birdcage veil. “Let’s find out exactly what kind of stowaway you turn out to be, Miss Midoriya.”

A chill stole up Izuku’s spine. The partition cracked open, and Keigo winked from the driver’s seat. “Well. Looks like my time playing chauffeur is over.”

He ignored Shouto’s icy glare.

“How unfortunate,” she said flatly as the carriage doors opened, a chauffeur in white gloves and gold buttons waiting on the wet cobbled stones. 

“Your coat, sir.” 

Keigo slipped from the driver’s seat, pushing a shiny credit into the breast pocket of the man offering his arm with a bow. “Keep it, Banks. Why don’t you see to Miss Todoroki.”

“At once, sir. Welcome, Miss, and…?” he stopped, his eyebrows shooting to his hairline. Izuku shrunk in her seat.

“Companion,” said Shouto, as if it were obvious. Izuku smiled weakly. Banks’s eyebrows rose higher.

“This crowd’s been screened?” 

Banks blinked, frozen in place before popping up straight like a wind-up tin soldier. “Yes, Miss! Security’s in place, spectators have been corralled some distance away, and reporters weren’t allowed beyond the last check point. It’s as quiet a boarding as we can hope to have. Shall I escort you to the boarding platform?” 

Shouto cocked her head, propping a silk parasol on her shoulder. Banks twitched. 

“Miss Midoriya will take a hat.” She peered up at the sky, shadowed and gray. “For the sun.” She slipped past him without a backward glance-or taking his hand. He froze again, opening and closing his mouth before slowly unwinding himself like a gear. He returned a moment later with a wide-brimmed straw hat, its lavender ribbon fluttering in the cold wind. 

“For the…” he sniffed. “…sun, Miss.”

Izuku blushed. “Thank you, Mr. Banks.” She hopped out of the carriage with a wave. Banks stared after her, perplexed.

A camera popped and flashed somewhere over Izuku’s shoulder-a rogue reporter. Her heart climbed into her throat.

“Miss! Over here!” 

A cold sweat iced over Izuku’s skin, the back of her neck prickling when a constable blew her whistle. She ducked her head, pulling down the wide brim of her hat, her mind whirring like the orb in her bag. Who would be watching if she turned around? Would anyone see her face, and know her for who she was? She grimaced, a sick churn of fear swirling through her gut.

There were worse villains than thieving steam carriage drivers waiting for Izuku to show her face.

“MISS! MISS TODOROKI!” the reporter yelled, struggling to keep an eye on Miss Todoroki’s birdcage veil as he was dragged away. Izuku kept her eyes on the ground, hurrying toward the platform. 

_They’re not looking at you,_ she told herself firmly. _No one is looking at you. No one knows who you are. And anyone who does, doesn’t know_ where _you are._ She shivered, the hairs on the back of her neck still standing on end.

No one knew who her name. Here, Izuku was no one. 

The prickle skittering across the back of her neck grew worse. Her steps slowed, her breath misting in the air.

“MISS!”

Izuku hesitated.

Somewhere, someone was watching her.

 _Trust your instincts,_ Madam Toshinori would have said. The wind pulled at her hat. A whistle blew. Izuku looked back. 

She studied the crowd’s distant, shouting faces from beneath the brim of her hat, blurring together the faster her eyes skipped over them. A figure was pushin their way between the reporter and the officer escorting him away; a man in a top hat and cane. Izuku froze. The world seemed to slow, the roar of the crowd melting away.

But when he looked up, only a stranger’s face gazed back.

Izuku’s shoulders slumped, her heart racing.

No steam carriage drivers, or smartly dressed villainous uncles, were waiting for her in the crowd. 

“Are you boarding or not, Miss Midoriya?”

Izuku whirled. Shouto was waiting, one foot perched on the steps leading up a steel platform, where a small, sleek solar craft bobbed overhead. A featherweight, Izuku knew; an escort ship just large enough to hold them, a flight deck officer, and a junior officer aloft. The sun glanced off its sail. Izuku clutched her bag tightly, a knot in her throat as she looked up at the underside of the RLS _Victory_. Another tingle of nerves shocked through her.

 _Courage_ , she thought, jogging toward the platform. A pit of dread burrowed in her stomach. _Courage_.

“I’m coming!”

* * *

The dread sitting like a stone in Izuku’s gut grew heavier the higher the featherweight climbed. She squeezed her eyes shut, muttering under her breath as she tapped her fingers against the foldover bag.

“It’ll all be worth it-It’ll all be worth it-the Magellanic Cloud is 158,200 lightyears from the Milky Way-” 

“Don’t look so pale, Midoriya,” Shouto cried, peering over the side of the craft. Izuku squeaked, blinking against the glare of the featherweight’s solar sail.

“Just remember,” said Keigo with a smile, his eyes drifting shut as he leaned back in his seat. He lazily waved a finger like a conductor’s baton. “Etherium is lighter than helium.”

The featherweight bobbed, gaining altitude, and Izuku’s stomach tightened. She glanced at the shrinking crowds below, swarming like ants, and shuddered. So did the foldover bag.

It wasn’t falling she was worried about.

“At the ready!” the pilot called, and Izuku forced herself to look away from the ground, a new thrill shooting through her veins when the junior officer-no more than a boy-aimed an anchor. The ship’s flight deck loomed overhead, the deckhands waiting with steel rope close enough for Izuku to hear their muffled shouts. The craft bobbed again, and Izuku gripped the edge of her seat as it was guided smoothly down. The junior officer stepped up to get the door.

“Ladies,” the boy tipped his hat. “Enjoy your flight.” 

Izuku held her breath until the moment her boot touched the deck. A roar of voices crashed over her, passengers and crewmen milling around the deck. Up above, others worked aloft, and Izuku tipped back her head, watching them climb the rigging like trapeze artists as they unfurled the last of Victory’s solar sails. Some leaned bravely over the wooden yards to marvel at the spaceport below. 

“The RLS _Atlas_ may have been larger,” Shouto drawled, twirling her parasol. Keigo smiled.

“You’re a tough one to please, Miss.”

“Larger?!” Izuku cried. “You must be mistaken, Miss Todoroki! The title for largest solar galleon in Crescentia’s history went to the RLS _All Might_.” She held onto her hat with the next gust of wind, spinning with a delighted laugh when children shot past her, darting toward the holographic orchestra shimmering on the far end of the deck. 

“This must be two times that!” 

“The _Atlas_ felt larger,” Shouto said, but Izuku’s eye had landed on the railing, and the never-ending sky waiting beyond it. Miss Todoroki’s voice fell away like white noise as she wandered toward the railing, her hand on her locket. She tugged it out from beneath her collar, her thumb brushing against the little brass button at the bottom. The miniature gears crafted inside the brass heart churned, and the locket fell open with a little mechanical crrreak, a holo-projection of her mother and father materializing into view. 

Hisashi beamed beside her mother in a tweed jacket and spectacles, his green curls windswept from a night of star-watching. He pressed a quick kiss to Inko's temple, opening up his arms for a thirteen year old Izuku, running to take her place between them with a toothy smile. 

The holograms looked up, as if they knew they were being watched. The projection froze, and Izuku smiled, cradling the locket gently.

It was the last portrait they would take together before Hisashi disappeared one year later, leaving nothing behind but a journal Izuku wouldn’t find for another sixteen years, the last entry of which consisted of a single, underlined acronym:

_**A.F.O.** _

Izuku reached out to grip the railing, a grim determination steeling her bones. 

She looked down. 

Crescentia sprawled out below her like one of her father’s miniature dioramas; the steepled roofs, docked solar galloens, and clock towers veiled with silver mist. Across the sky, ferry ships rode the glare of Montressor’s sun on Crescentia’s horizon. Gold spilled over the spaceport, and Izuku’s eyes fluttered shut, _Victory’s_ sails rippling behind her.

 _You never forget that moment,_ Hisashi had written on page 12. _The start of a new world at your feet. It stays with you. Long after you’ve seen it-like an old dream._

Izuku smiled, heaviness seeping into her limbs. She felt like lead-a statue stuck the middle of a park with slowly creeping vines-the exhaustion of the past few weeks finally rushing to meet her. She gripped the railing tightly, the wind raking cold fingers through her hair.

She was alive. The artifact was safe. And for a moment, she could pretend.

Miss Todoroki’s sun hat tumbled from her head.

Izuku whirled on her heel.

“Funny place to be if you don’t want to lose a hat,” a voice grit. “Wouldn’t you think, Freckles?”

A shudder crept over the back of Izuku’s neck. She stiffened, glancing around the deck. The crewmen behind her didn’t spare her a second glance. A pair of elderly women whispered behind their fans, trailing after a hysterical woman thrusting a jewelry box into her husband’s arms, but still no one looked at Izuku. 

Slowly, she tipped her head back.

The dusty underside of a boot greeted her first.

“The last person who wandered that close to the railing with something valuable dropped it.”

Izuku opened and closed her mouth, her heart skipping in her chest.

There was a woman aloft in the rigging, Miss Todoroki’s sun hat crushed in one leather-gloved palm, watching her.

Izuku swallowed. Her eyes trailed up the long, black line of the woman’s boots, to her amber waistcoat, the collar of her dress shirt left open to gape and pant at the hollow of her throat. She’d pushed up her sleeves, the gold two-piece compass in her hand glinting in the sun. She cocked her head, wisps of ash-blonde hair whipping around her face.

“Fucking furious when I told her only an idiot gets that close to the edge of a solar ship with something to lose.” She snapped her compass shut, never once losing the cocky slouch to her shoulders as she leaned forward. 

Izuku stared, frozen in place.

It wasn’t the woman’s gold compass, or her unbuttoned collar, or her piercing red eyes that rooted Izuku to the deck. It was her face-too angular and feline to be human, her ears pricked like a cat’s-a rough, intimidating beauty in the slant of her eyes and the hard line of her mouth. She jumped down from the rigging, landing nimbly on her feet. 

A Felinid, Izuku thought absently, her thoughts racing. Native to the planet Tyrguul, an ally planet to Her Imperial Highness’s Terran Empire, with a recognized seat in the Intergalactic Congregation of Peaceful Worlds since 1805 A.E-

Izuku shook her head, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

“Then…I suppose I should consider myself lucky,” she said breathlessly, clutching her bag tightly. The woman scoffed.

“Lucky? That's a fine way to put it. You’re on a luxury merchant ship where half the passengers have strong trade connections on the Etherium Winds. I should think more than half these rich bastards consider themselves to be lucky.” Her glare pinned Izuku in place. “Yourself included, I’ll wager.” 

She held out the hat. Izuku stared at it, an embarrassed flush creeping up her neck. She opened her mouth to say something-anything at all-when the foldover bag ticked. The woman’s eyes narrowed, honing in on the bag in Izuku’s arms. Her pupils rounded, and her catlike ears twitched.

Izuku stepped away quickly, snatching the hat.

“That’s a-a rather reductionist view of Victory’s passengers, don’t you think?” she said in a rush, a spark of irritation igniting in her chest when the woman’s mouth curled with a flash of teeth. “And what would you say to those aboard this ship who aren’t half so lucky?” 

The woman’s grin vanished, regarding Izuku with an unreadable expression. Izuku flushed, crushing the hat to her chest as she strode closer. Her boots clacked on the polished deck floor. Izuku’s stomach flipped, and she glanced at the shadow cutting across the deck. She looked up. The woman’s red eyes were bright as stained glass when she leaned close, the smell of leather and sandalwood sending a shiver sparking down Izuku’s spine. She plucked at the hat’s loose lavender ribbon, her voice low.

“To invest in a fascinator.” 

Izuku blinked. Across the deck, someone shouted.

“All hands on deck!” 

The woman’s ears pricked. Her lip curled, and she swore, stepping away. She nodded curtly, watching Izuku from the corner of her eye. 

“Miss.”

She stalked across the deck, shrinking like a shadow under the sun. Izuku exhaled when she lost sight of her waistcoat, tipping her face toward the sun. Her shoulders drooped with another sigh, her heart still racing. She laughed, fitting the hat over her head. “A fascinator…”

“Have you been checked in, Miss?”

Izuku snapped up straight, her eyes wide as she turned to the young man who’d crept up beside her. He smiled. Ice speared through Izuku’s veins, her heart sinking lower and lower with every face that passed by. 

Miss Todoroki was nowhere to be seen. Izuku tucked her locket under her collar, her stomach twisting when the officer’s eyes followed. The officer frowned.

“May I see your ticket? I can escort you to your rooms.”

He held out his hand.

This was the moment when Izuku realized she’d made her second mistake.

It was also how she ended up handcuffed to a pipe in the captain’s stateroom. It seemed _“I’m with Shouto Todoroki”_ wasn’t an acceptable-or believable-answer when _“I’m waiting for someone”_ didn’t work, and one couldn’t conjure up a first-class ticket.

“This is a terrible misunderstanding, gentlemen-”

Izuku laughed nervously in her chair, her eyes fixed on the foldover bag, sitting by the gleaming mahogany desk sprawling across the stateroom. The gilded clock on the mantle ticked like the foldover bag, and the men who’d brought her into the stateroom yawned. The older of the three, a Japanese man with a hard, lined face called Mr. Ito, looked at her unblinkingly.

“I’m sure.”

Izuku swallowed a whimper, a cold shock of fear lancing through her when he reached into the bag, inspecting the orb in the palm of his hand. He frowned, tilting it toward the light.

“Is that-is that a Procyon war helmet on the mantle?” she babbled.

The cabin boy shot her a bored glare, crossing his arms. “I don’t fucking know.” 

“McCollough.” Mr. Ito turned with a glare, and Izuku sighed when he placed the orb back in the bag. The boy flushed, devoting himself to studying the odds and ends displayed on the mantle: flintlock pistols, shrapnel, off-world coins, armor pieces. A mounted skeleton of an alien creature no bigger than Madam Toshinori’s house cat. Izuku swallowed. One of the officers, a kind young man with a doe-eyed look Izuku had heard Mr. Ito call Hernandez, smiled disarmingly.

“The captain enjoys collecting military memorabilia.”

The clock rang the hour. The men looked at the bag. Izuku fidgeted.

“You know!” She laughed lightly when they turned to look at her. “What is believed to be the very first Procyon metalwork was actually found on planet Laar’s second largest-and coldest- continent-”

By the time the stateroom doors opened, the men keeping guard were slouched in their seats. The boy groaned.

“Oh, thank God, Monoma. Thought she’d drive me fucking mad.”

“One more swear at me, McCollough, and I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of this flight the only cabin boy available to scrub toilets. Lord knows they’re as filthy as that mouth of yours,” the woman in the doorway, Monoma, sighed. “Now shoo, the adults are talking.” McCollough reddened, scurrying out the door. Izuku craned her neck, her back to the stateroom door.

She heard Monoma’s footfalls first, before the officer cut across the room to study her. Her silvery blue eyes flicked over Izuku impatiently, before snagging on the foldover bag. Izuku stiffened in her seat, her handcuffs rubbing against her wrists. Monoma frowned.

“Well? This better be good.” 

Mr. Ito stepped forward. “She was acting suspiciously, Ma’am, and we had reason to believe-”

“Suspiciously?!” Izuku cried hotly, jumping to her feet. The handcuffs tugged on her wrists, forcing her to sink back down into her seat. She swore. Monoma glanced at her coolly.

“Did she?”

“Put up a fuss over her bag, wouldn’t allow me to escort her below decks-”

“I doubt many women would, Mr. Ito,” Monoma replied, running quick fingers through her cropped blonde hair. Mr. Ito blinked, a blotchy red flush creeping up his neck. 

“And her bag?” Monoma asked lightly. Mr. Ito cleared his throat.

“Nothing dangerous, Ma’am, but-”

Izuku rose from her chair with another nervous laugh. She tried to smile, but it might have been a baring of teeth. 

“This is really, truly, a gross misunderstanding-!” She yelped when the handcuffs held her fast, keeping her hunched like a crone. Officer Monoma arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow. Izuku’s smile cracked. Mr. Ito shot her a withering look

“Not even out of the atmosphere, and Mrs. Buhari reported stolen jewelery! And what was the piece she’d noticed had vanished, Mr. Hernandez? Ah, yes.” Mr. Ito smiled coldly. Izuku blanched. 

“An antique brass clockwork holo-locket.” 

Monoma’s eyes swept down to the locket resting against Izuku’s chest. Her stomach dropped like a stone.

“You don’t understand-”

“And if that wasn’t enough, she goes on to claim she’s with _Shouto Todoroki!”_

The sudden silence in the stateroom choked Izuku. Her hands shook in her lap, Monoma’s calculating gaze picking her apart like carrion, piece by piece. 

“I’m not a thief,” Izuku whispered. She hung her head, glancing at the bag, a suffocating dread welling up in her chest. “Please. You must believe me-”

Monoma laughed. “Believe you? Yet you’re with _Shouto Todoroki?_ I wish I could say that’s a first. And I’ll wager she doesn’t have a ticket to show for it?” The sharp, mocking edge to her voice stung. Izuku’s fingers bunched in her skirts when Monoma crouched down to look her in the eye.

“Do you know what we do with thieves and stowaways, Miss?”

Izuku’s cheeks burned scarlet, shoving down the anger threatening to burst out of her skin. Monoma tapped a finger on the armrest of her chair.

“They float.” 

Izuku’s head whipped toward her, eyes impossibly wide. “That’s barbaric,” she hissed. Officer Monoma grinned, popping upright. 

“Still no confession? That’s a shame. As the _Victory’s_ Security Officer, it is my duty to ensure the safety of her passengers and cargo-I’m sure you understand.” She straightened the lapels of her white naval coat.

“Mr. Hernandez, notify Communications-I believe Officer Jirou’s on duty. I want a constabulary balloon en route straightaway-before we leave the atmosphere. No need to bother the captain with petty thievery. Mr. Ito, I’ll take that locket.” Monoma held out her hand, frowning when Mr. Ito stared at her open palm. She tapped her foot impatiently.

“Mr. Ito. The locket.” 

Mr. Ito cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “She’s still wearing it, Ma’am.” 

“So you had the nerve to restrain her, but not enough backbone to recover what she’d stolen?” Officer Monoma sighed. She ran her hand through her hair again. “Very well. I’ll recover it myself.”

Izuku shrank back in her seat, shaking her head. “Please don’t.” Monoma’s eyes narrowed.

“So you admit to it?”

“I’m not a thief-!” Izuku repeated through gritted teeth. The stateroom doors burst open with _bang_. Izuku yelped.

“Does anyone want to tell me what the _fuck_ is going on?” a voice boomed. A woman’s. Izuku paused, a chill running up her spine when the _clack_ of heavy leather boots echoed across the polished floor. Mr. Hernandez and Mr. Ito snapped to attention.

“Captain!”

“Not even an hour off-ground,” the captain roared, “and you idiots apprehend a stowaway in my stateroom _without_ consulting me? **Monoma!”**

Izuku flinched. Officer Monoma rolled her eyes before schooling her expression, turning toward the door with her hands clasped behind her back. Izuku glanced at the white ridge of her knuckles, growing paler the tighter she balled her fists. 

“Ma’am. This matter’s been seen to-”

“Oh, has it?” The captain jeered, her voice gritty with a growl. Izuku shivered.

“I don’t know what kind of power you think have on this ship, Neito, but it seems to me we have a misunderstanding.” The boots clacked. Monoma took a step back. Sweat beaded on the back of Izuku’s neck. She didn’t dare turn around to look.

“The Arcturians may have hired you to oversee the security of their power crystals and their brat of a prince, but _I’m_ the one who was offered the commission to pilot it. Your business is _my_ business, and if you undermine my authority again because you don’t know the _fucking_ difference between playing the hero in your Naval Academy simulations from working on a real ship, I’ll maroon your pompous ass at the next spaceport-contract or no. Are we clear? Hah?”

Monoma didn’t flinch. “Crystal, Ma’am.”

Izuku bit the inside of her cheek when she caught sight of the leather boots out of the corner of her eye, the captain of the RLS _Victory_ looming into view. Izuku’s heart tumbled into her stomach. 

This close, her eyes were a deeper red, like garnets.

“Couldn’t help yourself, could you, Freckles?” 

Izuku’s stared up at her, her voice dying on her tongue. A peaked naval cap held back her blonde hair, the long, black admiral’s coat that had been missing when Izuku first saw her swishing around her ankles. The captain’s eyes narrowed.

“Well?”

Izuku winced, a curl of shame threading through her stomach. She'd come all this way, only to end up handcuffed to a pipe. She blinked away the angry tears beading on her lashes. There had to be a way out of this situation. There was _always_ a way out-one way or another. Izuku’s gaze fell on the dented Procyon war helmet, her thoughts whirring as the captain waited, her boot tapping on the floor. _Tap, tap, tap-_

“Your helmet is a replica,” Izuku blurted. The tapping stopped. Officer Monoma stared. Mr. Ito coughed, his eyes comically wide. The captain scoffed.

“That helmet was recovered from a Procyon Star Runner, at the site of the Battle of the Garn Archipelago-”

Izuku snorted. The captain blinked, her hackles rising.

“Clearly,” Officer Monoma sneered, “she’s unhinged. Permission to-”

The captain ignored her, and the corner of Izuku’s mouth twitched when she stooped to look Izuku in the eye, her nose wrinkled with a snarl. 

“If you knew anything about the Procyon Expanse worth your spit, you’d understand that their generals are issued unique armor pieces stamped with-” 

“-a small rune drawn by their war priests?” Izuku fired back, her heart bouncing off of her ribcage like a rabbit. The captain’s expression shadowed, a cold anger sapping her face of any warmth it might have held before. Her voice hissed out between her teeth.

“I think I’d know an authentic Procyon war helmet from a cheap collector’s toy, _Miss_ , seeing as I served in the Intergalactic Armada and fought in the Great War between Procyon and Terra. But I won’t bore you with my scars.” The room grew deathly quiet, the light in the stateroom dimming. Izuku tugged on her restraints, too angry to worry about the chill that zipped down her spine. 

“And I think I would know an authentic rune from a misspelling seeing as I’ve studied it!” Izuku straightened her shoulders with a glare, her hair tumbling over her shoulder. “And that is doctor to you, Captain-uh-” she stopped, growing quiet when she realized she didn’t know her name.

“Bakugou,” the captain supplied with a wolfish grin. Izuku flushed angrily.

“Yes, well, that’s _Doctor_ Izuku Midoriya to _you_ , Captain Bakugou,” she seethed, “from Musutafu University! Intergalactic History and Extraterrestrial Cultures Department! And I am tired of being patronized, vilified, and walked over today. So if you wouldn’t mind, you’ll see if you look a little harder the character for ‘death’ slants slightly to the left, not to the right-although the misspelling is easy to overlook given the warp of the metal, I’ll admit…” She stopped, her fingers numb from the jolt of adrenaline coursing through her veins. The stateroom had grown quiet, every eye fixed upon her. Izuku’s chest heaved, her face hot as she turned toward the captain, her red eyes bright.

“Please. If you’ll just look-” 

Officer Monoma’s scowl deepened. “Ma’am, you can’t honestly be thinking of entertaining-”

“Where is that damned glass magnifier?” the captain snarled. She marched across the room to rifle through her desk, fitting a small glass magnifier to her eye.

“Misspelled! I’ll show you fucking misspelled-uppity university majors-damn nerd-!” She swore, plucking a small book from her library and grumbling as she crossed the room to study the helmet on the mantle. Izuku fidgeted when the captain squinted at it, flipping through her book before snatching the magnifier from her eye.

“Mr. Hernandez!” the captain barked. The Terran officer startled, his dark eyes large.

“Ma’am?”

The captain clasped her hands behind her back, the stateroom charged with a stormy silence. Izuku’s nails bit into the soft skin of her palms, her heart beating a path out of her chest.

“Unshackle her-and find me that collector’s contact information. I think I should like to invite Haggle for tea the next time I find myself grounded.” Her lips stretched threateningly over the word _tea._

Officer Monoma gaped. “She’s a thief-” 

The captain whirled on her heel, her teeth bared. “She’s a passenger aboard my ship. Now unshackle her, or your pride won’t be the only thing that floats.” 

Monoma stiffened, her lips bloodless. She jerked her head. 

“Mr. Ito, Mr. Hernandez, I’ll leave you to it. Captain.” Monoma’s mouth twisted. “Doctor.” She nodded curtly, excusing herself from the room.

“Oh, save the drama for the silver screen, Monoma,” the captain grunted when the door snapped shut. Izuku rubbed her wrists, whispering thanks to Mr. Hernandez.

“Fucking unbelievable. Now…” The captain studied Izuku over her shoulder. “Mr. Ito. Mr. Hernandez, you're dismissed. I’ll handle this-and _you-_ later. You can report to First Officer Kirishima. Tell her I’ve been delayed.” Izuku bit her lip when the officers took their leave, the door closing softly behind them. The captain leaned against her desk, the tips of her extended claws drumming against the wood. 

“Tell me honestly. No bullshit. Do you have a ticket?”

Izuku swallowed, a bead of sweat slipping down her shoulder blades when the captain’s eyes followed her gaze to the foldover bag. 

“No.”

The captain scowled. “And what will I find…” she said, her ears pricked, and suddenly, there was something dangerous about the narrowed slant of her stare. The captain jerked her chin, her red eyes shifting.

“-if I look in that bag?”

Izuku’s throat tightened. She stepped back-a mouse trapped in a cage with a predator. The bag _ticked_. The captain leaned forward, her pupils thinning to slits. Sweat beaded on Izuku’s temple, her mouth dry.

“I-”

A knock rapped at the door.

“God dammit,” the captain roared, banging a fist on her desk. “If there is _one more interruption_ -” 

The cabin boy, McCollough, poked his red face through the door. “Mrs. Buhari found her jewelry. And Miss Todoroki’s waitin’ outside, Ma’am.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and a bubble of unease burst through Izuku when he turned to ogle her. She clutched her skirts when McCollough said,

“For _her_.” 

The captain stood from her chair, whirling to look at her. She scowled, waving her hand dismissively. “Send her in,” she huffed. Izuku wiped her palms on her skirt when the door opened, feeling faint.

Miss Todoroki didn’t say hello. 

She stepped into the stateroom like a princess, frowning at the odds and ends on the mantle.

“You have someone of mine,” she said, in that flat, gray voice of hers. Banks, her chauffeur from the steam carriage, scurried into the room after her. The captain grinned, widely enough that Izuku could see the pale points of her canines. She dropped back down into her seat.

“Half n’ Half. _Pleasure_.” 

Banks gasped, scandalized. Miss Todoroki blinked slowly.

“You and I both know it’s not.” She turned to Izuku, tapping her folded parasol against the floor like a cane. “I see you’ve met Katsuki.”

Izuku glanced at the captain out of the corner of her eye, rolling the name over on her tongue. “Katsuki,” she muttered, flushing scarlet when the captain’s sharp gaze swiveled to hers. She snapped her gaze to her bag, ignoring the stare branding the back of her neck. She hurried to grab it, anger beginning to bloom in all the places her fear had taken root.

“That’s a mild way to put it,” she said before she could think better of it, and winced. The captain, Katsuki, snorted, propping her boots up on her desk. 

“Thought Pretty Boy was your plus one.” She flashed Banks a crooked grin when he grimaced, hooking her hands behind her head as she reclined in her chair.

Shouto’s mouth thinned, her blue eye as bright as ice. “Keigo’s only here because Father needed a place to hide his favorite toy until the press backs down,” she said, as if her father’s lover was as uninteresting as the weather. Izuku squeaked, and Banks sniffed, an awkward silence settling over the stateroom. Katsuki guffawed.

“You never were one to beat around the bush.”

“I’ve taken a companion,” Shouto continued, as if Katsuki had said nothing at all. Katsuki’s eyes narrowed, her eyes meeting Izuku’s across the room. 

“Look at you,” Katsuki drawled. “Making friends.” Izuku looked away, her face burning.

Shouto ignored her. “I’m allowed a plus one. So I’ll have Miss Midoriya’s name added to the manifest.” She held her head high, her tone cold. “Along with a sincere apology.”

Katsuki’s face twisted, her mouth settling into a grim, hard line. Izuku swallowed, clutching her bag. But the captain rose gracefully, bending at the waist in a deep bow.

“The treatment you received was unacceptable, and I will not tolerate such brutish behavior amongst my crew. I take full responsibility. You have my word: it won’t happen again.”

Shouto’s gray eye sparked like flint. “See to it that it _won’t_ ,” she said icily. Katsuki straightened to her full height, a flicker of anger flashing across her face.

“The officers in charge of her detainment will be held responsible and swiftly punished,” she promised. Her eyes drifted to Izuku again, dark and piercing. For the second time that day, Izuku’s corset squeezed against her breasts, suffocating and too tight. She wrapped her arms around her bag, trying not to stare when Katsuki’s eyes narrowed, her mouth quirked into a not-quite smile.

“Allow me to escort you to your suite.”

* * *

Miss Todoroki’s luxury suite was a room fit for a queen.

Two queens-and maybe a count, Izuku decided, staring dazedly at the gilded wall panels. The dining table with its bowls of fruit perfectly bright and beautiful enough for a still life painting. The fluffy carpets and chaise lounges. The crystal chandelier and gossamer thin curtains. The brass cage of dimly glowing, jellyfish-like creatures that didn’t need water to float, vines and alien plants creeping through the bars. Izuku gasped.

“Is that _phasmatodea putorious_ -?!” 

“You can have the room with the balcony,” Shouto began, as if she’d given away something as simple and unimportant as the apples on the table. Izuku gawked. For once, the foldover bag was strangely silent.

“And you-” Shouto turned toward Katsuki. The captain cocked her head, leaning against the doorway. She’d removed her hat, her hair slipping from the coiled knot at the base of her neck. Shouto waved her hand. 

“Don’t feel welcome to stay any longer than necessary.”

“Fuck you, too,” Katsuki said, grinning. Banks gasped loudly.

“I’m going to bed,” Shouto announced, as if she hadn’t heard. She caught Izuku’s eye, her face carefully blank. “Goodnight, Miss Midoriya. If you need anything, Banks will attend to you.” Banks stiffened. Izuku nodded, her eyelids heavy, and she wondered if she could melt into the carpets instead of looking for her bed. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. Shouto looked at her curiously again, before disappearing down a hall lined with too many silver mirrors. Banks cleared his throat.

“Can I get you anything, Miss Midoriya?” he asked stiffly. Izuku smiled.

“No. Good night, Mr. Banks.”

He bowed his head. “Good night, Miss.” He paused, bristling. “Captain.”

“Banks,” Katsuki drawled. She crossed her arms over her chest, jutting out her chin. “I’ll see myself out.”

“Of course you will,” Banks answered with an oily smile. And then he was gone, and Izuku was alone with the captain of the RLS Victory-Katsuki Bakugou. A shock of nerves lanced through her. 

“Funny,” Katsuki said suddenly, her eyes glinting in the low light as Izuku turned to face her. “How your companion doesn’t seem to know your full title. What was it? Doctor Midoriya, from the Intergalactic History and Extraterrestrial Cultures department in Musutafu?”

Izuku’s heart thumped hard in her chest. She set her bag down on the table. “We’re still…getting to know each other.” 

Katsuki grunted, and Izuku held her breath when she stepped through the doorway. She cut a strong, willowy figure, as graceful as her stride. Izuku stepped behind a chair, bracing herself against the wood. The lights in Miss Todoroki’s luxury suite burned brighter, a disembodied voice floating into the dining room from the parlor, where a record was spinning. 

“Let me make one thing clear.” Katsuki reached across the table for an apple, shining it against her waistcoat. She inspected it beneath the warm light of the chandelier, her hair falling across her cheek.

“I don’t tolerate liars and villains. How Monoma handled your situation was unacceptable, but, if I find out you’re anything worse than what you claim to be…” Her eyes gleamed, harder than garnets. “You’ll wish you never set foot on my ship.”

Izuku’s heart rushed furiously, a spark of anger licking up her ribs. She tilted her chin up, meeting the captain’s glare. “And what makes you think I’m a liar, or a villain?”

Katsuki’s gaze slipped to the foldover bag. “You have something to hide.” She tossed her apple into the air, once, twice, her claws extending to pierce the skin. Izuku went cold. 

“O-oh,” she said dumbly, her throat suddenly dry. Katsuki’s eyes flicked to her face, dark and calculating.

“Villainy 101, doctor.” She sank her teeth into the apple with a loud _crunch_. 

A _gong_ reverberated through the suite. An ancient grandfather clock in the parlor. Izuku jerked, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Katsuki’s lip curled. She fished a pocket watch from her waist coat.

“I don’t know what you have in that bag, but if it compromises the safety of the Victory, I _will_ find out.” Her teeth flashed, pale and sharp in the gloom of the dining room.

The clock struck again. Izuku gripped the back of a dining chair until the wood bit into her palm.

“Good _night_ , Captain Bakugou.”

The captain studied her over her shoulder, her eyes bright as a cat’s beneath the glitter of the chandelier. “Good night, doctor.”

She turned away, slipping through the doors without another word. The doors snapped shut, and Izuku wilted, sinking into a chair like a puppet cut from its strings, the gong of the grandfather clock ringing hollowly through the dining room.

* * *

There is only one rule to villainy for otherwise good people in unfortunate situations:

Don’t get caught.

The door to the balcony bedroom groaned open, a splash of candlelight spilling across the floor. Izuku closed it softly behind her, her fingers slipping over the iron key in the lock. It _clicked_. Izuku winced.

The dark of the room pressed in close around her as she strained to listen. Down the hall, the grandfather clock _ticked_ , the faint _creak_ of the cabin settling, like ghost steps in the hall, sending a prickle of goosebumps down her arms. But beyond the dark and the distant hum of the etherium engines, the suite was quiet. 

On the other side of the wall, Banks began to snore. Slowly, Izuku relaxed.

She uncurled her fingers from silver candelabra in her left hand and set it on the bedside table, blowing out its candles one by one. A breeze cut through the bedroom, the curtains billowing around the french doors leading out onto the balcony. One had been left open.

Izuku shivered in her nightdress, stepping lightly across the room.

A soft, blue glow flickered beyond the curtains, the balcony brushed silver with starlight. Izuku paused, the curtains fluttering past her cheek with a sigh. She hesitated, wringing her hands before pushing the doors open wide.

The chill in the air stole the breath from her lungs.

The Stygian Current rushed by in a sea of stars, a comet tail racing alongside the ship just beyond the Current’s blue glow. Izuku leaned over the balcony, her hair whipping around her face as the comet zipped ahead, disappearing into the cold expanse of space.

It was everything, and nothing at all, like her father had described in his journal. She laughed, her heart racing, her fingers beginning to ache from the cold.

Voices rang out on the deck, and Izuku looked up. Above her, a woman with a wild mane of hair was leaning against the railing as she belted out a shanty. Izuku wasn’t the one only to have wandered out onto their balcony. A pair of young women giggled when the officer waved, catching sight of their pale nightgowns, a chorus of high, clear voices echoing hers as the crewmen did their nightly rounds:

_“’There was a young captain who sailed the sea_  
_Let the winds blow high blow low-o_  
_I will die, I will die this young captain did cry_  
_If I can’t have that maid from the shore-oh!_  
_If I can’t have that maid from the shore!_  
_I have lots of silver, I have lots of gold,_  
_I have lots of costly wares-o!_  
_I’ll divide, I’ll divide, with my jolly ship’s crew_  
_If they row me that maid from the shore, shore, shore!_  
_If they row me that maid from the shore!”_

Someone cheered, and Izuku smiled, leaning against the balcony railing, a shadowed figure joining the officer on deck. 

“Stand easy,” the captain cried. The woman laughed, clapping her on the back as she bent close to say something.

Izuku sucked in a breath as the captain’s head turned, stepping behind the curtain.

On the desk near the balcony, Hisashi’s open journal fluttered, stray pages slipping to the floor. Izuku swore, hurrying to close the doors. She bit her lip, resting her forehead against the cool glass, her heart racing as she watched the captain retreat across the deck. She sighed, drawing the curtains across the glass before collecting the stray entries scuttling across the floor.

_RA 5h 23m 34s | Dec -69° 45′ 22_

_STRUCTURE-NOT a planet at all?! Spheroid mechanism._

_A.F.O???_

_Dear Inko…I love you. I love you. I love you. I cannot tell you all the ways in which I miss you. Kiss Izuku goodnight for me._

_Can’t sleep. Don’t get caught. Don’t get caught._

She paused as she reached for the last page, a quick charcoal drawing of a planet shaded in gray, its rings crossed in a legendary ‘x’. She thumbed its bent corners, the glow of the Stygian Current rippling across the room as she looked to the foldover bag.

The grandfather clock struck midnight.

Carefully, Izuku tucked her father’s entries into the journal’s cracked leather spine, smoothing a hand down its face. The thick scars roping across the backs of her hands looked white in the starlight. She glanced at the curtains. Her throat tightened.

Maybe in a different life, she could have been the woman the captain met on the deck: wide-eyed and innocent. No dangers. No secrets. She listened to the distant echo of the shanty outside, the voices of other passengers waking to watch and listen from their balconies rising with the winds, and let herself dream-just for a moment-about what it might have been like. To have been a real passenger aboard the Victory. A woman Katsuki would have looked at without suspicion. She slipped her sleeves over her knuckles, and her throat tightened, the memory of Katsuki’s sharp-eyed stare still fresh in her mind. Maybe, she might have even been someone Katsuki sailed alongside, racing the Etherium Winds to the next spaceport, singing with the crew to pass the long nights. She curled her fingers, a hollow ache settling in her chest.

Those were dreams for a woman free of villainous uncles.

She flipped to one of her father’s entries, the pages dog-eared and thin, the shanty outside her balcony fading to white noise until suddenly, she was in her dusty little office at the university again, her heart thumping harder with every word she read.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, running a finger down the page.

_There are things you do not speak too seriously of in certain academic circles-not out of disinterest, but out of fear for one’s reputation. The spiritual. Fringe science. The Loch Ness monster. El Dorado. Atlantis._

_Treasure Planet, and its loot of a thousand worlds._

_My Izuku loves that story especially. I did, too, when I was small, waiting for my brother to slip out bed and come to mine. We would read Treasure Planet, and sometimes we’d read it over and over again, well past bedtime, until our Aunties found us and scolded us for it.We didn’t have a mother or a father-we had Auntie Mei and Auntie Bess in their grim dark dresses. But in their case, parents and Aunties were one and the same. Sometimes, Auntie Bess would walk past our room, and I would know because I could see the candlelight under the door-and she would walk right past. She’d let us play and dream. And I think, that story is why I became an astronomer. Why my brother left home to study aeronautics and fly a ship of his own. It was our wildest dream when we were small-to do this together. To fly. So when he came to my door fifteen years after he’d made off to Crescentia and asked me to board a ship with him…how could I refuse?_

_Fifteen years without a telegram, a call, or a letter. He missed my wedding. The birth of my daughter. Bess’s funeral. And yet there he was, our childhood book tucked under his arm, and a journal with some of the last known notes on Nathaniel Flint, the long lost and fabled account of his navigator, who’d disappeared shortly before Flint did. I was ecstatic. Overjoyed._

_But something unsettles me. Fifteen years apart has changed something about my brother. The way he speaks to me, the way he watches when I stargaze, or write. The crew he hired are watching too-always watching, until I feel their eyes on the back of my neck like oil. Once, and I cannot explain it, but I felt as though my things had been rifled through. Nothing was out of place, but the bookmark inside my journal was upside down. I feel guilty for thinking this, and I wonder if I am making myself see things that aren’t there because I miss my wife, I miss Izuku, and on the longest nights, I wonder if this voyage was ever worth it when going so long without them feels like tearing off a piece of who I am with my own teeth._

_I have to remind myself why I’m here. The journal is legitimate-there is no reason to doubt it. But then I think of Izuku, who listened to me read to her with stars in her eyes. I think of Inko, warm in our bed beside me, and everything I could give her and Izuku if I had the gold. Maybe it really is just a story, and I’m not following directions, but someone’s hopes and dreams._

_But how could I not leave? How could I stay in our cold little flat if I could find the key to the loot of a thousand worlds?_

Izuku blinked away the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She placed the journal on the foot of the bed, pale as she reached into the foldover bag. The orb inside gleamed and glittered in the palm of her hand, whirring softly as she sucked in a breath, pressing her fingers in a pattern over its alien symbols. It ticked and shuddered in her palm, opening like a music box, a shimmering holographic map splashing over the room in a wave of green light. Izuku stared at the projection of the planet hovering above her bed, her heart thumping hard as she stared at the crossed rings slung around it.

Nathaniel Flint’s Treasure Planet.

And Hisashi Midoriya’s last known location.

Izuku’s jaw clenched, her eyes flicking to the closed curtains.

“Hold on, just a little longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed at all or have a thought, please consider leaving a comment. They really do mean a lot to us writers, and can give us the little boost we need sometimes to dive back into a story. Thank you so much for reading 🙏
> 
> Some quick Treasure Planet trivia!
> 
> When Captain Amelia is first introduced to Doctor Doppler, she claims to have had a "nasty run-in" with the Procyon Armada, but "won't bore you with my scars", which is where Katsuki's line is derived from.
> 
> In the film, Etherium is a layer of space with breathable air. Sometimes some flow quickly enough in the same direction to form 'Currents'.
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> For a little mood music, check out Aeronaut's playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/24e9h7jtdnyKN8KazCAaBF?si=714306a7c49a4928


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